Google’s Discover feed faces climate change controversy

About a year ago, Google launched an updated tool to tailor the content feed on its apps and mobile browser homepage. The Discover feed, Google said in its launch announcement, “makes exploring your interests easier than ever.” BuzzFeed News spoke to eight people who saw articles in their feeds that refute climate science. Each of the people it spoke to either works in an environmental field or is interested in climate change.

The content that users reported seeing had titles like “Bipartisan Panel of Scientists Confirms Humans are NOT Responsible for Past 20,000 Years of Global Warming.” In reality, mountains of evidence have led to a scientific consensus that points to humans as the culprit behind climate change.

Mountains of evidence have led to scientific consensus that points to humans as the culprit behind climate change

Google’s search tool and feed are supposed to help users find information that will be most “useful.” The company reassures users that it works with external search quality raters to assess “how well a website gives people who click on it what they are looking for, and evaluate the quality of results based on the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of the content.” Its search page is one of the most trafficked websites in the world.

Seeing inaccurate or deceptive content on climate change on a trusted platform like Google can be eyebrow-raising at best and misinforming at worst. H. Curtis Spalding, an environmental professor at Brown University who had previously worked as a regional administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, told BuzzFeed News that when he saw a blog denying climate change on Discover, “at first, I was confused by them.” Spalding clicked on one that he thought might be credible. After that, he said, similar content appeared on his feed.

What's worth noting on our Google Discover story is that this is separate from search. Google's service determined users were interested in a topic like global warming and then proactively sent them links to climate change denier sites https://t.co/dyW0ImLjcq